"Thomas is one of those outstanding Southern writers – seemingly soft, languid, maybe even lazy, when actually what he is, is cotton wrapped about a razor. Half the time you don't even know he's gotten you until it's too late." – Charles L. Grant

A former newspaper reporter and TV news producer, Thomas is an award winning writer, essayist and playwright. He writes suspense that delves into the darker side of our nature while examining the more noble aspects of who we are.

The Latest

Unthinkable Choice is available now (ghosted)

My short story, "Mother and Child Reunion," has been picked up for a future broadcast of Tales to Terrify.

My short story, "The Heart is a Determined Hunter," was featured in The Horror Zine.

You can now hear my story, "The Heart is a Determined Hunter," free on Tales to Terrify. Click the image below to listen.

Tales to Terrify

SOMETHING STIRS

For more information about my supernatural suspense novel, Something Stirs, click on the cover to go to the Something Stirs site.

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From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

In each of us there is something that is wary of the things that go bump in the night. We may not whistle as we walk past the graveyard, but it is not unusual for some to find their footsteps trying valiantly to keep up with their racing heartbeat as they pass. And while I will not disclose the person’s name, I even know someone (a serious cyclist) who holds his/her breath when riding past any cemetery.

Why?

Because there may be minute particles of the recently buried floating on the breeze. There may even be particles of those entombed in crypts a century ago via their “primitive” venting systems. And this cyclist inhales deeply when the graveyard comes into view and does not exhale until they have safely passed and there is no danger of inhaling the gruesome “leftovers.”

We know nothing out there can really get us, but often the hair on the back of our collective necks bristles just a little, or our steps quicken just a bit, or we look over our shoulder as we pass by.

Then there’s the dark. It makes some people uneasy. Some people are afraid of the dark. Some people have a phobia about being in a dark place. And even though we understand Rod Serling’s admonition that, “There is nothing in the dark that isn’t there when the lights are on,” there is something about the dark that can be a little disconcerting. Because bad things live in the dark. And bad things happen in the dark.

Sure, sometimes bad things happen in the light, but we most often associate evil acts with darkness. And if we turn our backs on the evil, that doesn’t make it go away. It just makes evil bolder. And it makes us de facto accomplices.

“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So that brings us to the “chronicling the things that go bump in the night” you’ll see up in the header portion of this site. Writers are expected to have taglines and brands, but for me it’s more than that. It’s something I believe in. My first novel was a “haunted house” novel. But once you bypass the scary (I hope) story, the theological theme was how God heals our brokenness. The novel I am working on now is also supernatural suspense that deals with how our sin affects not only our relationship with God, but our relationship with others. Then there are future stories which deal with some weighty theological issues couched in human trafficking, an evil community, man playing God in the lab, a couple on the run from a faceless killer who knows their every move, a man driven by visions of future evil that only he can stop. A movement to corrupt the country couched in the filmy veil of a new religion.

Things that go bump in the night.

The evil things are not always monsters. But they are always monstrous. And they are real. A reader recently told me, “I don’t want to be exposed to this kind of thing. I don’t want it in my head.” And that’s their choice. we may not want the images in our heads, but neither can we ignore the evil. People “dabble” in the occult, become sucked into a dangerous lifestyle, and turn away from God. Children are stolen from their parents and sold as sexual slaves. People kill for sport, or to feed a twisted, sadistic need. We smile to our neighbor’s face and gossip about them behind their backs. Communities and cults such as The Peoples Temple in Guyana, The Order of The Solar Temple in Switzerland, the Heaven’s Gate community near San Diego, and Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda all followed paths which lead to their ultimate deaths by suicide and murder.

And what about human trafficking? Recent statistics indicate 70% of all trafficking is done for the purpose of sex and sexual abuse. Forced labor rates second at 18% and these aren’t fictional monsters used to tell theological truth. These monsters are real and they are at work in every country in the world.

Maybe even in your neighborhood.

Things that go bump in the night. They are no longer relegated to the works of Poe, Lovecraft, King, Grant, and Keene. They are all around us. They prey on the innocent. Their ideas seduce us away from the God of love and light and toward the Prince of Darkness and his lies. Away from hope and eternity to a hell of despair and darkness.

Every genre of fiction has stories only it can tell. Every genre is nothing more than a canvas on which our stories are drawn and painted. And every one, if blessed by God, points the way to truth.